NekoJonez: Rant #008: Console Wars, a war fought wrong.

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“The Nintendo 3DS is for kids, the graphics are ugly and the PS Vita is just better. It has way cooler games.”

Really now? Is this how we are fighting the console wars? And is this war even needed to be fought? I realize that I haven’t written an article in a long time, since I’m busy with my college exams, but this is something that got me worked up recently. After a deep sleep of this series, I decided to write a new rant as my return to get this stuff out of my system and so I can continue my life. 

Console wars, are they even useful?

To be quite honest, probably not like you expected me to say, but yes. I do think console wars are useful. But not executed in the proper way.

The use of console wars is to allow the fanboys to get in big heated debates for me to laugh at. It’s an use nonetheless.

In all seriousness, I have some arguments why I think a console war is useful. First of all, you learn the gamer to choose each and every new console release. Since most people don’t have the time or the money to be able to purchase all the systems, you make gamers think about their products. Thanks to this, console developers have to pay attention in what they create. They can’t simply slap something together. They need to make something new or better to improve on their previous product.

In console wars, developers can also learn what works for a certain audience and what doesn’t. With this information, a studio can learn which series they should try to get to their console as an exclusive and which to leave in the dust.

But a console wars, is also extremely idiotic. Think about it for a moment. We discuss about a console hardware and what it can do. This is just plain ridiculous. Take for example the Wii U. Such a great system with amazing potential. But since it doesn’t have great 3rd party support, it doesn’t sell well. And this has nothing to do with the console wars.

My point here is that a lot of the meat and bones of a system is in the software you run on it. I have a crap 2nd Dell laptop that I use to do my research for my blog on and play some low-end games that don’t keep me distracted of my college work for too long.

In addition to that, we compare, like we say in Dutch, apples with pears. The Wii can’t be compared to the PS3. Not in the slightest. We talk about innovation against raw power. Two opposites in the gaming world. Talking about the Wii, why is Nintendo always pushed to the side of the console wars? Oh, and let’s not forget the PC!

That the PC isn’t included, I can understand. Since you can custom build a PC, so you can’t compare it to a console. Since nearly everybody PC specs are different. A computer is personal and actually tells a lot about yourself. But that Nintendo is left out… since it’s more a family console… Err, yeah right. Really fair war there. Leaving out part of the competition.

Look mom, the PS4 is so much better.

This picture I found while researching explains enough. I started talking about it in my previous part, the console wars is just done totally wrong.

First of all, there aren’t only consoles. You also have handhelds. A console wars seems only to be about the consoles. Why is it never boarder to handhelds as well. I simply don’t get it.

Secondly, a console wars can’t be won. The winner of a console wars is the console(s) you own. And as a hardcore Nintendo fanboy, I admit that I have a PSP and a PS2. And I highly enough them. And if somebody bashes Nintendo, I don’t give a care. Unless they say Nintendo is a kiddy company. Then I have a whole slew of arguments to prove the trolls wrong.

And the final argument is, are we going to ignore beautiful innovations, with a lot of potential like the oculus rift, shifto cubs… Or the Steam box. Oh yes, I’m going there. Apart from being incomplete, a console wars never takes new gadgets in to a count. Such a same.

I think I’m going to close off this article. Console wars really make my eyes roll. The urge to slap somebody in the face when they say that a console is better then another is always big. Each console has it’s strong points and selling points. And in the end, the best console is the enjoy were you enjoy yourself with. And besides, the console wars are always plagued with trolls, haters and fanboys. It’s impossible to make a decent talk about it.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed reading this ranting of mine. Sorry that it isn’t up to quality to my other articles. (In my personal opinion.) And I hope to see you next time somewhere. Oh, and normally I always ask at the start to leave a comment, but now that I’m sure that you read my article, I’ll ask it now. Since otherwise I just get troll and idiotic comments.

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Rant #004: Lay-outs ~ Let’s get forcing.

Let’s rant about something different this time. Something that mostly all gamers have something to do with. Social networks and things like that. But mostly, the lay-outs of them. YouTube is a big one in this area. They change their lay-out so much, it starts to annoy their users. Another nice example is the Facebook Timeline. Are these constant changes good? Or do they do wrong things? I wanted to make a video about this but I rather wanted to write an article about this. I admit that some changes got me mad but I actually started to not really care. I just try to adapt to the change. 

The biggest issue.

The biggest issue with the changes are mostly that you don’t get any information at all when the change is going to happen. Suddenly a new lay-out is there in your face, and you simply got to deal with it. After some hours, a dozen of video’s go online that claim that you are able to revert back to the old lay-out.

Also, you can’t really test the new lay-out. Apparently as YouTube partner, you can. But according to me, that is far from enough. Cosmic Panda was a lay-out you could test at will. That was a good idea.

Don’t worry YouTube, you won’t be the only one receiving some ranting here. Facebook, you have issues with this too. The timeline, it’s a great idea and makes the site pretty unique. Think about it. Basically you write your life story on Facebook by sharing pictures, video, feelings… And you can watch your history in a timeline form.

Each new lay-out has a bunch of nice new features but it also gets rid of a lot of features too. It’s like in a store. They change everything from location so that you explore the place a bit more so that you pass by products in the hope you buy them. This logic can’t be applied to sites like Facebook or YouTube. Because you get frustrated since you can’t change what you want.

Trolls and haters.

It doesn’t take long before almost the whole site starts to hate the new lay-out. They always say that it sucks or that it doesn’t look nice. But after some time, you get used to the new lay-out. But by the time everybody got used to it, there is a new lay-out ready to be launched.

I have a big question for Youtube. You guys have the lay-out for quite a while now. How is it possible that so many big channels still have the old lay-out? And even your partners? The change to your new lay-out has a good idea behind it. To change the lay-out that it’s the same for each platform. That the channel looks the same on the computer and on the mobile devices. But make it them so that you have to change after some months.

It wouldn’t surprise me that a lot of comedians take easy money when the new lay-out comes around. That they make parodies and put the creators of the site to shame. But I don’t think that a lot of the changes are bad. I have a penpal in Finland and by the second he got the new lay-out he went all rant on me. People aren’t used to changing sites. And he doesn’t like the merging of the “stop” and “refresh” button in browsers.

Testing.

Facebook had a beta program to test their new lay-out. My mother and a classmate have gotten the new lay-out. And as far as I know, for months. Until this day, the new lay-out  hasn’t been published.

YouTube has it’s YouTube Labs. But here is the thing, it’s extremely hidden and you barely see it. Plus, I am sure that the feedback they get from it is too little.

I remember that Google Docs and other products had an option for a while to change back to the old lay-out. This was great since I used the old lay-out on one screen and the new one on my second screen. So I could see where everything was located in the new lay-out.

The biggest issue is that these things are buried. You want to test something? Well, after some digging you can. And then you can give feedback more easily.

WordPress has a great system for this. The publish unfinished releases so that people can test them out. They also tell you where you can help and give feedback. In addition to that, they have a change log. And the help feature really helps if you feel lost. The WordPress forums is extremely helpful and they reply fast.

Compare this to the slow Facebook and YouTube helpdesk. They might be big companies but if teams like the WordPress guys can pull it off so fast, I truly can’t understand why the others fail in this. WordPress goes even as far that admins can edit posts on anyone’s WordPress.com hosted blog to fix issues. You don’t see other websites do that.

Conclusion

I would like to shout at developers to release beta versions to the public to test out before you fully launch the new lay-out. Even when the new lay-out is filled with great idea’s, people get alienated and lost in the new lay-out quite easily. The internet can be that dumb.

Also, I want to thank the people who do the effort to make video’s to point out the issues of the new lay-outs. Video’s or articles, it’s the same deal. This way people can voice their opinion and maybe get some things “fixed” or improved.

Also, leave an option to stick with the old lay-out. And when you think the new lay-out is ready to be launched for everyone. Please, make an announcement. So that everybody can get ready for the change. And don’t roll it out like it’s your site’s last thing to save it from death.

But what are your thoughts on this matter? Leave it in the comments down below. Thanks for reading and happy blogging!